Life was designed to be lived in community.

13 And do not
present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present
yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments
of righteousness to God. 14 For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you
are not under law but under grace. 15 What then? Shall we sin because we are
not under law but under grace? Certainly not! 16 Do you not know that to whom
you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey,
whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? 17 But
God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the
heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. 18 And having been set
free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. 19 I speak in human terms
because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as
slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now
present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness. 20 For when you
were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 What fruit did
you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those
things is death. 22 But now having been set free from sin, and having become
slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life.

“And
the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant, with faith and love which are
in Christ Jesus.” 1 Timothy 1:14

Intro: Yield - Pull yourself together

Yield
your members servants to righteousness unto holiness. I cannot save and
sanctify myself; I cannot atone for sin; I cannot redeem the world; I cannot
make right what is wrong, pure what is impure, holy what is unholy. That is all
the sovereign work of God. Have I faith in what Jesus Christ has done? He has
made a perfect Atonement, am I in the habit of constantly realizing it? The
great need is not to do things, but to believe things. The Redemption of Christ
is not an experience, it is the great act of God which He has performed through
Christ, and I have to build my faith upon it. If I construct my faith on my
experience, I produce that most unscriptural type, an isolated life, my eyes
fixed on my own whiteness. Beware of the piety that has no presupposition in
the Atonement of the Lord. It is of no use for anything but a sequestered life;
it is useless to God and a nuisance to man. Measure every type of experience by
our Lord Himself. We cannot do anything pleasing to God unless we deliberately
build on the presupposition of the Atonement.

The Atonement of Jesus has to
work out in practical, unobtrusive ways in my life. Every time I obey, absolute
Deity is on my side, so that the grace of God and natural obedience coincide.
Obedience means that I have banked everything on the Atonement, and my
obedience is met immediately by the delight of the supernatural grace of God.

Beware
of the piety that denies the natural life, it is a fraud. Continually bring
yourself to the bar of the Atonement - where is the discernment of the
Atonement in this thing, and in that? I wrote this down the other day and quite
honestly I forgot where I got this quote! But there was so much truth to what
was said. The great need is not to do things, but to believe things. Do you believe
that?

Application: Do you really Know God?

“at-one-ment” making at one, ATONEMENT
In Christian thought, the act by which God and man are brought together in
personal relationship. The term is derived from Anglo-Saxon words meaning
“making at one,” hence “at-one-ment.”

God is seen as taking the initiative in
man’s salvation; thus atonement is the work of God, who opens the possibility
for sinful human beings to receive pardoning grace. For the sinner, who cannot
know God, who cannot bridge the gap between himself and God, a “new and living
way” is opened up by God.

1. The confusion: vs. 15 What then? Shall we sin
because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not!

So does that mean
we can go on sinning? We cannot allow sin to have control over us! For the
Christian in the past we slaves to sin but now through the righteousness of
Christ we are slaves to righteousness. We are to live in submission to our new
master, Jesus Christ, and not to be entangled again with the sins that
characterized the old life, sins which no longer have any claim over them. No
longer confused.

2. The correction: vs. 16-18 Do you not know that to whom you
present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey,
whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? 17 But
God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the
heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. 18 And having been set
free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.

Don’t you realize that
whatever you choose to obey becomes your master? You can choose sin, which
leads to death, or you can choose to obey God and receive his approval. You
have been set free that is the correction; you are no longer controlled by the
old nature nor should you allow it to have domain.

3. The challenge: vs. 19-22 I
speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you
presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more
lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for
holiness. 20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to
righteousness. 21 What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are
now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now having been set
free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to
holiness, and the end, everlasting life.

We are to yield the members of our
body as tools of righteousness. You have fruit to holiness, and to the end, everlasting
life. What fruit have you brought for God? Have you pulled yourself together?
It is a challenge but the end is everlasting life.

4. The conclusion: vs. 23 “For
the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus
our Lord.”

“The wages of sin is death.”

“The free gift of God is eternal life
through Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Pull yourself together you have grace.

“For by
grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the
gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9